Gary Brandner - The Brain Eaters

Like most of the houses in the small town of Wheeler, the one where the Denkers lived was more than sixty years old. It was a boxy two-story frame building with a wide front porch and a brick fireplace chimney running up one wall. It was too big for the family of Carol, her husband, and two small children. However, the rent was half of what they would have to pay in Milwaukee, where Ken was working for his doctorate at the university. So Ken commuted back and forth from Wheeler while Carol worked at Biotron.

The street was quiet under its heavy green canopy of shade trees. Nothing unusual about that. All the streets in Wheeler were quiet, all the time. Dena was a little surprised to see Ken’s pickup in the driveway. He would normally be at school now. In the garage she could see the Ford that Carol drove. Something wrong?

Stop being silly.

She parked in the street and started toward the big house. A tricycle was overturned in the walk at the foot of the porch steps. It must belong to one of the Denker children. The boy. He was five, wasn’t he? And the girl was what? Two? Close enough. Now, what were their names? Oh, what did it matter? Dena was not there to have a conversation with the children.

She had not really been social friends of the Denkers; her contact with Carol was almost entirely at the office. Their friendship was based on their mutual profession and shoptalk. Dena had been invited out there for dinner a couple of times. She had reciprocated, but that was it. She knew Ken as a quiet, pleasant man who looked something like a scholarly Robert Redford, but she had never talked with him about anything serious. The kids were always clean and well behaved. Thinking about it as she approached their house, Dena was surprised at how little she really knew these people.

Actually, Dena would not have minded seeing more of Carol’s kids. She liked children and once in a while regretted not having any of her own.

She climbed to the porch and rang the bell, then waited nervously for someone to come.

Silence.

The window shades were pulled down behind the lacy living-room curtains, so she could not see inside. That was another odd thing. Shades were not drawn at that time of day. Dena felt a tiny prickle of apprehension.

To satisfy herself that she had really tried, Dena gave the bell key another jab. When there was still no response, she turned with relief and started off the porch.

A scream.

Dena froze, her foot on the top step. Unmistakably, it had been a scream. Thin, high-pitched, and terrified. And it came from inside the Denkers’ house.

Again.

A child’s scream of eye-popping terror.

Get out of here, Dena’s good sense told her. You don’t know what might be happening in there. Anyway, it’s none of your business. It might be just one of the kids getting spanked.

And yet she did not move to leave.

“Help me! Helllp! ”

That was not a kid getting spanked. That was a kid in deadly fear.

Now she could not go. A human being needed help. Dena looked quickly at the neighboring house, separated from the Denkers’ by a wide yard. Nothing doing there. She turned toward the house across the street. Quiet and lifeless. From the urgency in the little voice calling for help, Dena feared she might be too late if she ran to one of the houses to try to get somebody.

She turned and walked slowly back across the porch. Her movements were stiff and wooden, as in a dream. But this was no dream, the sick dread in the pit of her stomach reminded her. She walked across the thick welcome mat to the heavy front door. She tried the old ornate doorknob. It was cold against the flesh of her palm.

The knob turned.

The door opened.

The hallway was dim, even with the light that came in through the open door and the fan-shaped window above it. Dena left the door open and moved cautiously into the living room. The furniture was contemporary in light wood and fabrics, contrasting with the house, which was dark wood and gloomy wallpaper.

There was light in the living room, but the angle of illumination was wrong, throwing shadows crazily where no shadows should be. Dena looked around and saw why. A floor lamp had been knocked over, the shade tilted so its light shined upward from the floor.

A fight? An intruder? What am I doing here?

“Help me!”

The cry came from upstairs, muffled but unmistakable. Dena started for the stairway.

As she stepped through the archway from the living room, she stopped, sucking in her breath. At the bottom of the stairs Ken Denker sat on the floor with his back against the wall. His fine blond hair was tangled. His glasses hung drunkenly from one ear. From his stomach protruded the black wooden handle of a butcher knife.

Dena put a hand to her mouth to keep from crying out. Her stomach contracted. From upstairs came the scream again and a thumping sound. The children must be locked in up there, she thought, and started up the stairs.

There was no light on the second floor other than what filtered past the window blinds. Dena did not take the time to search for a switch but continued in the direction of the child’s cries. She made her way cautiously down the dim hallway; then suddenly she stopped.

Someone was there.

A shadowy figure stood motionless ahead of her, outside a closed door. The paneling of the door was splintered and slick. Blood dripped from the hands of the standing figure. Fat red pustules broke out on the face as Dena watched. The face was contorted and swollen with the boils but still recognizable. Carol Denker.

Dena turned and started back for the stairs. Helping a child out of a room where he was trapped was one thing, but facing this wild wreck of a woman was something else. Bravery and cowardice were meaningless terms. Dena had only one thought — get the hell out of there.

She was not quick enough. Carol exploded away from the battered door and came at her like something out of a nightmare, her mouth gaping, uttering an incoherent growl. Dena stretched out for the railing at the top of the stairs, but she was hit in the back and knocked staggering against the far wall. She bounced off and hit the floor. Fireflies danced in the darkness before her eyes.

When her vision cleared, she saw Carol coming at her, hands extended, fingers bent into claws. Saliva oozed from her mouth and hung in a swaying, silvery thread from her chin as she advanced.

“No!” Dena cried. “Carol, don’t! It’s Dena!”

No flicker of comprehension showed on the mad face coming toward her.

Painfully, Dena pushed herself to her feet, back against the plaster wall. One elbow tingled where she had scraped it in her fall. She put out her hands defensively, knowing as she did so how impotent she was against the maniacal strength of the woman.

Carol was close enough for Dena to hear her wheezing breath and smell the stink of her sweat. Then a dark shape rose behind her in the stairwell. Dena stretched to look over the woman’s shoulder and was shocked to see Ken Denker coming up behind her.

The knife was still buried in Ken’s stomach. The front of his pants was glistening dark with blood. He walked unsteadily toward his wife, who was still reaching out for Dena.

“Carol!” Ken’s voice had a gargling sound as blood welled up in his throat.

In some recess of the woman’s tortured mind, the voice registered. Carol Denker turned away from Dena to face her husband. He took a lurching step toward her and grunted with the effort.

Carol suddenly clapped both hands to her head and screamed. The nails dug into her flesh and tore it away in bloody strips. Her cry was a banshee wail like nothing that should come from a human throat. Still screaming, she lunged at the stumbling, oncoming figure of her husband.